What happens if Roe vs. Wade is overturned? That would be, no doubt, a good thing. We should rejoice when it happens. But how much of America’s difficulties are centered in the decisions of the Supreme Court?

As a law, it is a judicial tragedy. But it is not enough to change the federal law. America needs a change of heart. We need to remember that the Supreme Court has no power to affect the heart of the country. If God’s law cannot change hearts (Rom. 8:3), how much less can the laws of the United States?

Here is my concern about the overturning of Roe vs. Wade: what happens when the law comes? Sin revives and we die. To undo Roe is to choose the death of America. That makes sense if you believe in resurrection. But we can only pray for the end of Roe if we trust that God raises the dead. The process of death and resurrection will be painful. But it is absolutely worth it if you believe children—in particular African American children—are valuable.

Roe vs. Wade is, without a doubt, the civil rights issue of the day. Planned Parenthood was begun as a white supremacist organization intent on getting rid of non-whites in order to purify the human race. If Rosa Parks was right to refuse to move to the back of the bus, then how much more ought we to pray that the Black Genocide in America end? Especially when it is being defended, supported, and paid for by our government.

But the law kills. So we must go into even good changes in the law with our eyes open. We will need to lean on the Lord of Life, trusting that, “if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you” (Rom. 8:11). We will need to trust, because there will be real consequences to such a change in the law. Sin will be enflamed as the law pierces the conscience of America. That is what laws do.

We are always tempted to trust in laws. When Enron was caught cooking the books, people had the book thrown at them. And before the trial was even over, a major overhaul of the nation’s accounting law was begun. The law had done what it should do. The bad guys were caught and jailed. But we wanted laws that kept people from breaking them. We wanted laws that were bureaucratically able to make people into good people. Laws are powerless to change people.

When Roe is overturned it will do what laws do. It will reveal the heart of America. And we will find the heart in there to be dark.

I pray that the children in utero will be granted the legal rights that they ought to have. But I also believe that America has become an idol to many conservatives. I am ready to see the death of America. I know that the kingdoms of men are all temporary. But also, God raises the dead. Whatever comes from the death of America in its current iteration, there can be no resurrection life for our nation without it.

When the law comes, sin revives. I pray the law will change to better reflect justice, to better protect the fatherless and the voiceless. And I pray that we will be ready to enter that death with faith in the God who raises the dead.